Electronic devices, such as personal computers, have gotten dramatically smaller in recent years. While personal computers of yesteryear were exclusively heavy, bulky, and designed to permanently reside on a desktop, a large number of today's personal computers are small, lightweight, and designed to be carried by users with them nearly everywhere they go. While this reduction of size and weight has dramatically increased the flexibility and use of these portable computers, this increased mobility has not been without its problems. One such problem is that these portable computers are often so small and lightweight that users are often not completely conscious of whether they are carrying one with them or not. As a result, a large number of these very expensive portable computers are inadvertently left behind as their users rush on to yet another important appointment, such as catching a plane, attending a meeting, or the like.
Even if these expensive computers are fortunate enough to be found by a scrupulous person intent on returning them to their rightful owner, they often lack identification to enable this return to take place. One prior attempt to solve this problem is to allow a user to, through software programming, enter his or her name and address into the computer. Unfortunately, many users do not perform these steps, or, perform them so infrequently that up to date information is not provided. A bigger problem with this approach, however, is that a scrupulous person finding the misplaced computer often has no computer expertise and is therefore unable to perform the proper key sequences necessary to retrieve the name and address of the rightful owner.